After lunching today with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, former Staten Island BP Guy Molinari says the so-called GOP “dream” candidate for NYC mayor won’t be running in 2013, explaining: “He has been in the public sector for a very long time. He is past 70. He feels he owes to his family to spend time with them.”

John Catsimatidis refuses to believe it, saying he’ll wait to hear the news from Kelly himself.

The Ryan budget proposal is a big issue in two upstate NY House members’ efforts to keep their respective seats: Reps. Kathy Hochul (Democrat) and Ann Marie Buerkle (Republican).

NY Union Proud (NYUP), the slate of insurgent union members competing for the leadership of PEF, has gathered the requisite petition signatures needed to make the ballot.

Alan Chartock pitches a (thinly-veiled) novel about a governor named “Anthony” with White House dreams. “It would have lots of sex, tales of old and new lovers.”

Common Cause celebrated former Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr.’s conviction, calling him the “poster child for corruption and the wholesale flaunting of our campaign finance and ethics laws.”

After the final votes were counted, David Storobin led Lew Fidler by 27 votes in the never-ending race for former Sen. Carl Kruger’s seat. The NYC Board of Elections will now embark on a hand recount (I believe its first ever) of some 22,000 ballots. By the time this is over, it’s unclear if the winner will serve a day in Albany.

Attorneys for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation say AG Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit “is a shocking case of misguided regulators knowingly and intentionally making false allegations that would constitute actionable libel if the allegations were not contained in a complaint.”

The relationship between NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Jim Owles Club President Allen Roskoff has not improved.